An era of rising anxieties around pregnancy and motherhood has spurred a recent mini-explosion in horror films revolving around such topics, many decades after “Rosemary’s Baby” broke that particular ice. Andrea Corsini’s debut feature “Ferine,” which expands on his same-named 2019 short, manages to mingle a paranoiac, violent take on the same themes with a creature-transformation conceit a la “Cat People.” Like Paul Schrader’s 1982 version of the latter, this is an upscale genre piece whose pretensions towards Art are upfront, starting with a quotation from no less than Schopenhauer.
The somewhat muddled tale of a wealthy foreigner in Italy, going feral from the pressures of maternity both lost and found, feels longer on rather lofty style than substance for some time. But the film, which recently premiered internationally at Fantasia, ultimately works up enough of a perverse froth to attract fans of screen fantasy in forms more sophisticatedly packaged than the pulpy norm.
Irina aka Irene (Irish actor Carolyn Bracken, who played dual roles in Damian McCarthy’s “Oddity”) is an apparent artist and collector drawn back to an estranged mother’s terrain by her funeral. She is, however, just exiting those fields, to the dismay of high-end gallerist Alfredo (Marco Gambino) and her erstwhile collaborator Till (Ilario Calvo). Having apparently suffered numerous prior miscarriages, she’s now turned to surrogacy, planning to adopt the baby about to be born to an Italian local, Anita (Uliana Kuzmina). When the latter has a post-birth panic about surrendering her child, Irina simply absconds with it from the private hospital facility in the middle of the night, knowing the destitute young woman is unlikely to pursue any legal or other options.
